Wednesday, 28 December 2011

Not much of a turn out at the club this week, probably people too stuffed up from Xmas, so broke out the Munchkin along with a couple of the Christmas themed expansions. Reverted back to basic set and first expansion along with Waiting For Santa and Santa's Revenge.

These games were, once more, over surprisingly quickly given the number of players as seems people are more willing to help each other within the game a lot more. This was possibly the consequence of having more players than the recommended six maximum as there are not enough monster 'buffs' to counteract the additional 'help' factor.
¶

Wednesday, 14 December 2011

Played a test game of Age of Eagles in preparation for Dave M's Play By EMail kicking off. Smallish forces of French and Prussians clash in a large area, interspersed with woods, and with plenty of room to manoeuvre. A game that saw a small force of battered Landwehr Cavalry take on fresh Polish Guard Lancers. Of course, since dice were involved, there was only ever going to be one outcome in a situation like this...

Wednesday, 7 December 2011

The campaign comes to an end as it normally does... with an all out brawl for the crown. Each player was to command his own personal 12 point retinues they meet on the fields outside of Altdorf. Who will dominate, the insurgents or the Emperor and his 'loyal' supporters?

Wednesday, 30 November 2011

The Empire campaign continues, as the new Emperor takes office in Altdorf, a rebellion breaks out, and pesky mythical creatures start interfering.

Paul and Dave S, declares against Emperor Tony and refuses to pay taxes, Matt, declares for Tony but refuses to pay taxes, claiming that his support alone is worth more than any tax. Everyone else pays a small token amount to him.

Meanwhile the newly participating Dave M was joining as 'unknown forces' who would soon make their presence felt.

Wednesday, 23 November 2011

Missed the first week of the new campaign due to being down south job hunting.

Arrived on the scene this week to be given a small plot of land in the north of a map that seems to be a bit familiar. Campaign is based upon the shenanigans that went on within the Holy Roman Empire but transposed to a fantasy setting.

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

Something a bit different as under Warhammer Historical Gladiator game, bought by Dave M during the Warhammer Historical half price sale.

Played the basic version, but with some made up multi-player rules to allow for the four (later six) players. A mixture of types were randomly handed out and I got to play a heavy, with large shield and slow movement.

The most disappointing part is the roll to hit being a straight dice off with skill only being a factor in a draw. Most Stat-lines for the Gladiators appear nearly identical so everything ends up as a 50%-50% chance. This mechanism is also used in Legends of the Old West, itself derived from Lord of the Rings rules, and is criticised in it for allowing excessively easy lynchings where hordes of weak characters can smack-down ruthless killers.

The Retinarii also appear to be over powered, and in one on one combat have a good chance (about 1 in 10) of ending it straight off with the disabling entanglement. In both bouts they were the last ones standing using their ability to evade from combat and ranged netting to decisive effect. Comment was also passed upon the wound modifiers for the thrown Gladius and Dart being so radically different, not that any weapons got thrown during the game unless you count the annoying nets of the Retinarii.

The rules seem to work OK for mass brawls but there is something unsatisfying about it on one on one combat where it resolves down to straight dice rolls. It does not feel to be much of gladiatorial contest. This may change if playing the more advanced rules which, judging by the crib sheet, appear to use more advanced armour rules.

Having got some pre-painted Gladiators myself after getting a couple of Ludus Gladitorius sets off EM4 Miniatures at previous Phalanx shows, I'm not sure whether to purchase these rules myself. They could be good for the chrome and historical details but the rules could do with a re-write.
¶

Wednesday, 2 November 2011

More Great War activity as the newly arrived Austro-Hungarians (new figures of Dave M's, he has still got some heavy artillery to fix up along with some more Infantry) attempt to link up with their Germanic allies as the Russian grimly hold onto the road awaiting a special delivery.

Wednesday, 14 September 2011

After last weeks trial run it's time for a full blooded 'Italian States Campaign'.

Once again using a cut down Horde of the Things, with only 6 troop types (this time including Artillery) and a modified map based campaign system that now covers the whole of Italy and not just the north. Up to 9 states were available, each with differing amount of land and income. States were distributed randomly between the 6 players with 3 states left neutral. France and the (not so) Holy Roman Empire are out of bounds and the historic invasion by the French, to capture Naples, does not occur.

Sunday, 4 September 2011

With Nexus, the producers of Wings of War, now no longer operating, and with the English language distributor of WoW, Fantasy Flight previously announcing that they would no longer support it (in favour of their Star Wars based X-Wing, which uses similar mechanisms.), things were not looking good for the 'Wings' community.

But at last some good news, posted by the games designer Andrea Angiolino on the Yahoo Group, and confirmed by the likes of Tabletop Gaming News.

The press release...

Camaiore, Italy – September 1, 2011 - Ares Games, a Tuscany-based games publisher recently established, announces an agreement with Andrea Angiolino and Pier Giorgio Paglia, the authors of the best selling game that recreates aerial combat during the WWI and WWII, formerly published with the name "Wings of War". Ares Games will publish the game under a new brand, "Wings of Glory". Wings of Glory will be published with a new rulebook, while maintaining compatibility with the previous Wings of War products already in the market.

"We are happy to be partnering with Andrea and Pier Giorgio to bring this wonderful game system to market." said Christoph Cianci, CEO of Ares Games, "Thousands of fans worldwide will be pleased to know that their planes and maneuver cards from Wings of War will be compatible with the new Wings of Glory."

Initially, Ares Games will focus on developing new miniatures for the game, but also plans to release new starter sets.

"This game has a very strong and loyal fan base around the world, which gave and will surely continue to give a great help to the success of our game with their support and creativity. They have high expectations of it, in spite of several attempts to imitate it with other settings and chrome," stated Andrea Angiolino, co-creator of the game. "We chose to partner with Ares Games because we believe they understand our game, and that they will take care of the wishes of its fans, as well as be respectful of its creators."

The first Wings of Glory products to be released will be four airplanes for the WWII game series: the American P40, the Russian Yak-1, the Japanese Ki-61 and the Italian Re-2001 Falco. Ares Games will publish a Starter Set with these four models, containing the introductory rules and all other elements needed to start play. The complete schedule of the next releases will be announced soon.With this announcement, Ares Games now publishes two important games from Italian creators that have achieved international recognition. In July, Ares Games aquired the rights from Sophisticated Games to publish the award-winning board game "War of the Ring", based on the J.R.R.Tolkien' s trilogy, "The Lord of the RingsTM", and created by Roberto Di Meglio, Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi. A new edition of the game, in English, will be available this Fall, with other language editions forecasted for Spring 2012.

Tuesday, 9 August 2011

The Federation send out a fleet of three squadrons of shiny white ships, in the hope of slowing down the Borg Cube en route to Earth, in a rerun of Wolf 359. Using a 'rolling' map board, the victory conditions were simple, stop the Borg from getting away, else the Earth gets destroyed.

Sunday, 24 July 2011

Same planes, same scenarios, same incompetence, different rules; as we return to Asran and Area88 after a five year gap.

New rules from Paul. Now hexagon based but still played over a large floor area this time carpeted with hex sheets. Each players planes are selected at random from a wide collection of post war jets, with the pilot having just the one random skill level. Attack and Defense are now card based, the number of cards available being determined by plane quality and pilot skill. Both sides roll to see what their scenario objectives are in secret. A good turn out for the game, 5 vs 5, with a number of the players from last time, including Kieron.

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Another capture from the old Furness Wargamers website, and useful 'background' for our more recent jet game...

Posted Friday 14 April 2006

A civil war wages wages across the middle-eastern country of Asran and the government in desperation has been forced to bring in pilots from outside the country, the elite of which fight in the legendary Area 88...

Unfortunately because of their inexperienced our motley, but heroic, bunch of mercenary pilots are deemed not good enough to fly in Area 88, so they and their assortment of decrepit planes have been posted to Areas 86 and 87 instead.

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

More fun with modified Ogre rules, as an 'artifact' found by the British in Egypt gets transported back to England and tinkered with by amateur scientists based in a peaceful country village. Much to their surprise their messing around has a rather dramatic effect.

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Two teams of two fighting each other in the Africa of the world of Castle Falkenstein using modified Ogre rules. British and Egyptians vs Mahdists and Bavarians, each with their own base\resupply point. Each uncaptured hex round the base is worth 2 build\reinforcement points with the new arrivals capable of turning up on any edge of the table.

Tuesday, 28 June 2011

Re-run of the Trafalgar game down at the Phalanx Show in St Helens. The journey down was good with the forcasted monsoon for the morning failing to appear.

The request for a big table had been granted and all four Hotz hex mats were in use. Matt had driven down early and had the game nearly set up. The rules had been tweaked to make firing at rigging more effective (but this was basically unused during game) plus a new critical hit rule for when 50% or more of shots hit.

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

This week at the club saw the re-appearance of Dave S. after a long absence, plus Paul carrying a rather large box. This turned out to be a model of the L10 Zeppelin, famous for it's bombing raid on the North-East.

This game was last played at the club in 2002, with Graeme, a previous participant, telling people of the various disastrous antics of that time and not exactly giving the current participants a feeling of hope. The large number of charts that were handed to us was also a worry.

I ended up playing the Flight Engineer, responsible for the beast's four Maybach engines and the instruments. The Kaptain was Mark, Dave S was 1st Officer, Tony as Chief Gunner. Character Sheets and Skill Checks are loosely based on the Call of Cthulhu system.

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

A mini campaign using the Warhammer Great War rules to resolve combat, as Germany and Russia fight over Poland at the start of The Great War prior to things getting too bogged down in static positions.

Paul, Tel and Matt as the Honourable Prussians verses the Barbaric Russians of Mark and Tony.

The Germans have forced a river crossing and have piled troops across the river during the night to try and secure the area between the two rivers during the following day. (Exact mission details are currently classified as the campaign is still on going)

Tuesday, 7 June 2011

Furness Wargamers have finally got a new blog based website, after the old .uk domain one disappeared a while back. A few of the recent members had asked about our web presence as they had done a search on the web for info only to get the holding page for the domain.

At least Family Biz managed to get a reprint and new edition, Sherlock hasn't been available for over a decade despite being a classic. Have started using Card protectors on my copy as the wear on the back of the cards make it pretty obvious who the bad guys are. The use of the original Sidney Paget illustrations on the cards was a master stroke.

The other players, Tristan, Mark and Simon, none of whom had ever played either of these games, enjoyed both of these classic old school games, both of which were using simplistic rules long before the 'euro-game' dominance of the gaming scene.

Tristan became the head mobster by keeping a low profile after the rest of us wiped each other out, and I never did get to play the St Valentine's Day Massacre despite having the card in my hand all game.

Managed to get five rounds of Sherlock in. Tristan taking the lead in the final round after a capture of Moriarty. Tristan 77pts, Mark 102, Simon 168, Tel 229 - low score is better. My score wasn't helped by being caught with the villain three times!

Also in my now venerable game box was a series of score sheets from the early 90's (and one with an actual date - May 93!) featuring the former gaming regulars of the Furness Warlords group such as Hopper, Ray, John, Lee, Gareth, Rob M and Dave Y. ¶

Sunday, 15 May 2011

The Urban Dead online game has finally left the doldrums! The balance of power has shifted in Malton and, according to the stats page, the zombies now outnumber the living by 4:1.

The cause of this shift? The Dead have returned after having launched an invasion a few years ago, organised by the Something Awful forum in early 2008 as an attempt to ruin the game. Apparently they are at it again, The Dead have returned.

The first invasion was a big one, but was, in my opinion, one of the best times to play the game as it had a real apocalyptic feel to it, what with hiding and sleeping in ruins, because all the 'safehouses' were overrun and ruined. There was real difficulty in finding vital resources such as first aid kits and revivification syringes until Kevan, the game's designer, tweaked the search rates and sort of spoilt things. I feel too many people are stuck in their comfort zones in the game; and the furries that occasionally pop-up in Malton Zoo are even stranger than the idea of a zombie Apocalypse so kudos to the Dead for hunting them.

A certain amount of revisionist history in the linked forum thread above, as they didn't come close to their intent of trashing the game the first time round; ruined buildings always were viable locations for searching and living in, it's just that the standard survivor is afraid to use them and prefer huddling together with the lights on waiting to get eaten. Also those who whinged about being dead (lowercase) are probably without friends to priority revive them. The original Dead had a good rampage, trashed the place big style and then things went quite, with only around 10% of invaders carrying on; This still made them the biggest single group in Malton.

Unfortunately, regardless of the current record ratio, the numbers are not currently as much as last time and despite the Danger Map on the wiki being mostly red (for zombie controlled) or grey (ghost town - few zeds or survivors) the humans are still holding out, they just can't hang around one spot too long. Time for the old 'river tactics' of ducking and diving behind the zombie 'wavefront'. Thankfully the actually density of the zeds compared to map locations is low enough to make hiding possible. The 10000 locations in the game (more if you include inside of buildings as distinct) are too much for even the 1500 members of The Dead to cover.

Update: (22 May) The maps slowly changing to a more friendly colour, less Red and more Orange, but not in the area I'm currently camped. Kevan has tweaked the search percentages again so very easy to find first aid kits and revive syringes. My group is currently trying to set up a series of decoy repaired buildings to distract the zombies a bit and continues to work on the still long revive queues.¶

Tuesday, 10 May 2011

Played some games of Wings of War at the club as nothing else to do. Choose to play a basic free for all given the uneven numbers of players. Single seaters only, with free choice of planes. Managed to win the first two sorties but was first down in the third and final one.

Elsewhere Graeme was demoing the new Cutlass rules, from Black Scorpion, in another three way battle.¶

Wednesday, 4 May 2011

A Middle-Earth based game of Hordes of the Things, as the Rohirrim face off against a force of Orcs and Easterlings defending a stronghold. I controlled the Rohir force on the right, matched up against the Easterlings, and also got to roll the command dice for both commands, which I preceded to do badly. Forces supplied by Matt and Dave M.

Wednesday, 20 April 2011

A trial run of Matt's once again heavily modified quick play rules; This being the final trial before Saturday's big St George's Day Trafalgar game.

A small encounter to try things out. Three British ships with Crack crew vs Four French, 3 74 gunners and a 80 gun, all with Average crews. Played over two partial Hex mats (The full game will be over four of these Hotz produced mats)

Monday, 11 April 2011

Obtained the new "Battletech 25th Anniversary Box set", the release of which is running a few years late due to various shenanigans, including attempts to bring the 'unseen' back and some dodgy in house dealing.

Saturday, 26 March 2011

Welshy, the web designer who set up the original site has been trying to get a replacement up and running, but given his dislocation around the country it's a bit unfair to expect him to get it done.

So the Clubs web presence is pretty limited at the moment, basically consisting of the Furness Wargamers Facebook Group, which doesn't have much activity at all on it, so not dissimilar to the original FW forum, that slowly petered out after a decent start.

There seems to be an healthy gaming community up in Ulverston judging by the Ulverston Gamers group. At least the all to brief existence of the Jabberwocky shop seems to of left some sort of gaming legacy. Plenty of members signed up to the group but not much actual activity, this seems to be true for Gaming Clubs web sites the world over, regardless of the age range of the participants .

Also new to the blogging world is 6Sided, a new dedicated wargames blog site. I'm going to use it as an archive site for my existing material. The new blog is called Tel's Athenaeum to reflect it's dusty archive status. Already had teething troubles trying to import from Blogger, so used my now outdated Wordpress Blog as a source for import. ¶

Sunday, 13 March 2011

It also available for pre-order from Amazon and due for release in September 2011.

While nice to get an Osprey directly on the subject, and with the much needed illustrations by Raffaele Ruggeri assured to be good, it remains to be seen if any new\accurate information comes to light on the campaign or battle or whether it'll be a plain old rehash of Augustus Wylde's second-hand account.

Trying to trace a resource that doesn't track back to the now de-facto standard account of Wylde, or the hysterical contemporary news reports, is nearly impossible. With luck both his overseas visits will have dug up some fresh information on this little known war.¶

Saturday, 12 March 2011

Got suckered into playing another online Zombie game after seeing an advert on the Urban Dead login page.

Die2Nite is very different to UD in that you are humans who are facing an inevitable demise in a small desert community (each isolated town only has a population of 40). The goal is to survive as many nights there as possible, each night more zombies attack, and it is a race to find and use a limited amount of resources to build more defenses. Once your zombie food your soul moves to another town and you hope you can do better.

It is apparently an adaptation of an existing french site, which might explain some of the strange selection of objects available and some of their unusual uses. Unlike a lot of games it actually comes with decent tutorials and a wiki.

There are achievements that can be obtained, some automatically just by surviving or dieing. I've already manage to obtain the cannibal one, well you've to eat haven't you! It's currently free to play, but like a lot of games you can get bonuses by coughing up some money.

Still visiting the Urban Dead game, but not much is happening and if any thing the survivors now clearly have the upper hand in an increasingly thinning active population, so it's boring playing a human and futile playing as a zombie.¶

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Scenario based loosely on the actions in the Black Sea of the Battle-cruiser Goeben and Light-cruiser Breslau, after their escape from the Mediterranean and transfer to the Ottoman Navy.

Turk reinforcements were restricted to only one side of the board and it was up to the two fugitive ships to make their way to safety.

If they had decided to sail straight across then they would probably have managed to get across the tables without coming to much harm, as the Russian big ships were just not fast enough to keep pace with the more advanced German designs.

Instead they decided to circle for a bit, possibly hoping that the remaining Turks could take some of the Russian ships out. After a tussle between the Russians and the Turks, the Germans finally make a break for it.

One final attempt By the Russians at slowing the ships down with a torpedo run from the destroyers failed, and the Germans were then too far away to catch in a chase.
¶

Thursday, 20 January 2011

A Colonial game but with a difference as it was played using a modification of the Ogre rules. These have been tweaked by Paul since the last attempt as using them to give a more traditional Colonial flavour.

Typical Sudan game, hordes of Ansar and Hadendoa verses British, Egyptian and Sudanese.Paul and Tony are Imperialists and their lackeys. The two Dave's heroic Mahdists and coastal allies.